Blistered Behinds

Some think government (local, state, and federal) is something “out there” and “foreign.”  They see government as “foe” rather than “friend,” as “threat” rather than “safeguard.”  Thus, a post appeared on my FB Timeline saying that “125 years ago, you didn’t have to ask permission from the government to:  collect rain water, go fishing, own a property, start a business, build a home, get married, hunt, own a weapon, cut hair, sell a product, protest, sell food.  You can do virtually nothing without being extorted by the government and obtaining their permission first.  If you still think you’re free, you’re deluding yourself.  You are just a free-range human living on a tax farm.”  I checked the source for this quote and found it on a site called ifunny.co.

At first reading, you might say, “By golly, that’s true!  We can’t do anything on our own anymore.”  But wait, there are two-sides to every story—sometimes three or four-sides.  Do you really want to collect and drink rain water today?  Have you heard of acid rain?  Have you noticed those streaks on asphalts rooftops?  If the government had not regulated fishing, there would be no fish left to fish in the ocean, or the rivers, or streams.  The FDA (government) saves us from E.Coli, salmonella, listeria, and parasites.  If not for regulations about “hunting,” our national wildlife would no doubt be extinct (like the Passenger Pigeon) by now, and our National Parks would be gas and oil fields, coal mines, and lumber mills. I think my point is made without belaboring it further.  Government can be a friend, a safeguard, and of great help to us.

I’ve adopted Abraham Lincoln’s definition of government as my own:  “The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but can not do at all, or can not so well do, for themselves—in their separate, and individual capacities.” Given that definition, I must also reiterate, in the event we’ve forgotten, that our government is a government “of the people, by the people and for the people.”  The U.S. government is US!  It is not some separate or demonic power that lords it over us.  It is not a swamp—and if it is a swamp—we are responsible for it being so.  Lincoln had something to say about that too:  “Elections belong to the people.  It’s their decision.: (There have been, as we all know well, several exceptions to that statement, including the present situation). But, Lincoln isn’t finished, he goes on, “If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their own blisters.”

The trouble is, with a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” the blisters of those who turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, become the blisters on everybody’s “behind”.